Limitations Using Neuroimaging to Reconstruct Mental State After a Crime

Abstract

Neuroimaging offers great potential to clinicians and researchers for a host of mental and physical conditions. The use of imaging has been trumpeted for forensic psychiatric and psychological evaluations to allow greater insight into the relationship between the brain and behavior. The results of imaging certainly can be used to inform clinical diagnoses; however, there continue to be limitations in using neuroimaging for insanity cases due to limited scientific backing for how neuroimaging can inform retrospective evaluations of mental state. In making this case, this paper reviews the history of the insanity defense and explains how the use of neuroimaging is not an effective way of improving the reliability of insanity defense evaluations.

The use of neurobiological evidence in sentencing mitigation

“…However, the Court noted the low bar for admitting mitigating evidence in capital cases for sentencing purposes and indicated that excluding the defense expert's testimony based on the scans was a reversible error (Biddle & Chamberlain, 2013). Despite significant mitigating evidence, however, Lisa Montgomery was convicted and sentenced to death; her sentence was carried out on 13 January 2021 (Lynch et al., 2021; Vitacco et al., 2021).…”